You're sweet Baroness. I hope this doesn't come across as silly. It seems like everyone else writes this amazingly believable conversation over a comm-link and I haven't the slightest clue where to begin.

How would I tell either the team, or a commander (commanding officer?) that I or the team needs to retreat? or someone needs medical attention that the group cannot provide?

How do you go in for the kill? or retreat? Keep your eyes peeled for whatever may come?

Awe, not really true, but nice of you to say! It's not silly, you aren't born knowing how to write, especially not specialized content. Read my intro, I can't write as a guy lol.

Retreat: retreat, fall backIf while moving a 'rally point' is indicated, somewhere to meet if the team/group/squad/platoon gets separated, you might hear 'fall back to the RP'Examples: Sir, we've been made! Retreat, take cover! Don't give 'em an easy target, evasive maneuvers as you fall back to the rally point!

moving forward: Move out, advance, it might be referred to as 'advancing on a position'

examples: Move out, boys, we've got a meet and greet at o'nine hundred. We've made visual contact with the target. Roger that, proceed as planned. Target is in sight, advancing on my mark.

did a little with nightvision in basic. Really references to nightvision aren't so much military specific jargon as slang. We call it NV a lot, we also use infrared. You might hear something as simple as a command to "get out/bring out the goggles"

Examples: Keep an eye out, we're heading in to rough terrain. The roads around here are popular with the locals for IED's, be on your guard. Keep your heads on a swivel. Keep a 25 meter perimeter, don't want anything sneaking up on us. Sir/Ma'am/Sergeant it's getting dark. Alright, get out the goggles/NV specs.

Well it feels silly, because the answers make so much sense. Hearing it, I can figure out what you mean. But coming up with those words isn't always as obvious to me.Thank you for taking the time to answer them. If I think of more I know where to go!

Sure :) And just have a little fun with it too. We military types aren't nearly as uptight as a lot of movies make it seem we use a lot of our own slang made up on the spot and some of the jargon made popular just by Hollywood. You want to get a lot of our dumber goofy references, just watch full metal jacket. Half of the marching cadences have references to that movie I swear.

The terms can sound pretty cool and add a nice element when used correctly though. Like once I was roleplaying with a Corpman in chat and he wrote out a scene of first responders, it was really cool. Then we also had a couple of Marines and they would start shooting lines back and forth to each other, really set the tone for a military style game.

Just remember that a lot of jargon is specific to the service (or country obviously). If you're using a fictional military, you have more leeway as to what jargon to use without it coming off as unrealistic.

If you're relatively new to military jargon, I'd recommend using it less rather than more. A bit of it can set the flavor, but too much that doesn't quite come off the way you meant can sound quite stilted. For example, I can't imagine anyone other than pilots using the term 'evasive manuvers', so if you used that for troops on the ground, it would sound rather weird/pretentious. 'Break contact' is a better term for ground troops retreating from the enemy in a careful manner (it usually involves them taking turns covering each other as they retreat).

But the best way to learn is reading fiction/non-fiction that has scenes of this stuff in it. If there are people on E who write the kind of military scenes you'd like to, just read their stuff and you'll pick it up pretty quick.

'Fall back' is another one. (Army brat, here.) The key thing is conveying your message quickly and concisely, even through interference. The phonetic alphabet was developed in such a way that each 'letter' consisted of enough syllables to piece the message together if there was a static burst. Code words or nicknames come about the much the same way. VC becomes 'Victor Charlie' in the phonetic alphabet, and then just 'Charlie' after frequent usage.

(Fun fact: I memorized the phonetic alphabet when I was in tech support, reading out modem strings. Every so often, I'd get a customer saying 'Don't bother with the "T as in" part.')

Here's a file for common brevity terms, most of which will never be used in RP, I'm sure. Basically, the point is to convey oneself in concise terms without allowing for misinterpretation. Winging it is just fine, just avoid long statements when talking over a net.

"Kick! Smack! Declutter MANFRED!" (all from the list of "new terms" at the start)

I was thinking military field slang would be rough and bawdy. Lyndon Johnson actually asked a general at a staff conference in the White House, "How can I hit them in the nuts?" referring to the North Vietnamese army - a comment saved for posterity by Robert McNamara...